


Complicated Answers

by chronicAngel



Series: Leaves in the Summer [40]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Complicated Relationships, F/M, Lies, Love, POV Third Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-06
Updated: 2019-05-06
Packaged: 2020-02-27 04:50:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18731947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chronicAngel/pseuds/chronicAngel
Summary: Ino does not like telling the truth because even if it does not hurt the person she is telling it to, the truth hurts Ino. So she lies. She puts up a pretty shield that she knows he will not try to break through and she lies.





	Complicated Answers

They're laying in bed next to each other, neither yet willing to get up to put on clothes, and he's gently tracing little shapes into her skin with a cold finger. They've made a game of it, at this point, where he'll trace the same one over and over again until she's able to guess what it is. She can feel him tracing a heart on her hip now and she tries not to zone out into the dark of her bedroom. They're supposed to be moving in together soon. Frankly, she's still a little bit terrified. It's been a year and a half and somehow it feels way too fast. "Ino," he starts, with that tone like he's about to ask her something she won't really want to answer. "Are you still in love with Shikamaru?"

She doesn't remember ever telling him that she was in love with Shikamaru in the first place. Their relationship was always meant to be a secret, and when they finally decided it was safe to reveal-- after  _three years_ , three years of loving each other and holding each other and promising to stay by each other and  _damn it_ , it still hurts to think about-- they were immediately forced to end it. They were fools to ever think it was safe, but she supposes it would have been just as suspicious to never enter relationships. Especially after their fathers died and they were thrust into the positions of clan heads way too young.

She was in love with Shikamaru, though. And apparently Sai knows it. She wonders if someone told him-- if Chōji revealed to him their deep dark secret one day by accident-- or if he simply sees the way it colors her every interaction with Shikamaru to this day.

Because she  _is_ still in love with Shikamaru. How can she not be?

How can she think of when they broke up at the age of eighteen because she convinced him that they should tell their families (really, it was his mother and Chōji and Chōji's father-- she'd long been an orphan and Yoshino was the only family he had left) about their relationship? They were forced to. There was no closure, even if they did share a last kiss at the door after hours of arguing to change a system that had been in place for hundreds of years-- arguing for hours to change a system they were never going to be able to change.

How can she remember when Shikamaru and Temari started dating and she was so jealous she stole secret kisses from his girlfriend for the illusion of being closer to him? She can still remember the taste of Temari's mouth-- hell, she can still vividly recall the taste of Shikamaru's, and she often wonders how many times she will need to kiss Sai before the flavor will leave her.

How can she recall just last week when she'd gone to dinner with Chōji and Shikamaru like they do every week for some illusion of closeness that they lost years ago and he'd remembered her order even though they hadn't been to that particularly restaurant together since they were sixteen? He walked her home after and the temptation to lean in and kiss him had been so strong. Her relationship with Sai wasn't what stopped her-- it was knowing he had to go home to Temari. Knowing he had someone else he loved.

She does still love Shikamaru-- she loves him so much it hurts. She loves him down to her bones. Every night she closes her eyes and she pictures a life with him that she can't have-- that she was never going to have. The life that two idealistic teenagers imagined for themselves in secret while refusing to acknowledge the rules being whispered in their ears by their own consciences. She thinks of a life where she has children and a big house and she works at the children's clinic with Sakura and runs the flower shop on weekends and she doesn't picture this life with Sai but with Shikamaru and it fills her with painful guilt every night.

Because she  _does_ love Sai. But she doesn't know if she is in love with Sai. She only knows that she could be, given enough time. She knows that she will be.

She looks at his face in the dark of her bedroom which she knows will soon be replaced by their shared bedroom in their shared house and she knows that some day, she will fall in love with him. Perhaps she will even love him more than she loved Shikamaru someday-- more than she still loves Shikamaru. Her love with him will not stay superficial forever, and yet, a part of her is horrified that it has stayed superficial this long.  _Why are you with him if he is not your true love?_ Something dark whispers in the back of her mind.  _Because I have to be_ , something that is perhaps darker whispers back.

She doesn't think he has ever lied to her despite her countless lies to him, and the thought truly terrifies her. Sai has only ever wanted the truth from her. It is all he has ever asked for. Not with his words, but with his actions-- with his seemingly endless capacity for honesty and kindness and forgiveness. She could tell him right now that their entire relationship was a farce and she never loved him and he'd still go to bed next to her like a loyal dog (although even this, she knows, is not wholly true, and she wonders what can be true about the two of them). Still, the truth is painful. Ino does not like telling the truth because even if it does not hurt the person she is telling it to, the truth hurts Ino. So she lies. She puts up a pretty shield that she knows he will not try to break through and she lies. "No, of course not. That was all a long time ago."


End file.
